County challenges DHEC on Okatie River plan

COLUMBIA -- The state's environmental regulatory board is expected to vote today on whether to grant Beaufort County's appeal of a water quality plan the state agency had issued for managing fecal coliform in the Okatie River.

The concern from the county is that the plan submitted by the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control calls for measures that may do nothing to improve the health of the river and the aquatic life it supports.

Of particular concern to local officials is the emphasis the state's plan places on reducing the percentage of contamination, as opposed to the volume of stormwater runoff entering the river.

"Dilution could be a solution, but it may not necessarily be the solution that we want," said Dan Ahern, stormwater manager of the Beaufort County Stormwater Utility division of the county.

The S.C. Coastal Conservation League's Reed Armstrong, who drafted the environmental organization's separate comments about DHEC's plan, said the state agency's response to both CCL and Beaufort County's critiques over the summer were "rather unresponsive to our concerns."

In June, during the public comment period on DHEC's draft plan, Armstrong agreed with the county's criticisms and detailed more from the environmental organization. Armstrong also argued that DHEC staff had not considered the complexities of a multi-jurisdictional watershed, such as the Okatie River, and that the plan needed a clearer way to document progress, measure aquatic life, and address the runoff from impervious surfaces, among other shortcomings.

The League also called for DHEC's plan to be more specific about the runoff generated by future development, which ends up entering the river and altering its salinity.

"Will a new development project in the Okatie watershed be required to present a stormwater management plan to DHEC which shows reduction of fecal coliform load by "x" percent from pre-development levels?" asked the League in its correspondence to the state agency.

The issue was a constant factor in debates last year over a proposal to build a shopping mall, "Okatie Crossing," at the headwaters of the Okatie River on real estate situated largely in Jasper County.

If the DHEC Board denies the county's request for a final review conference, the county may take the matter to the S.C. Administrative Law Court.